(1) Kyushu Trip: 10-Dec-2016 Singapore / Shanghai / Fukuoka

Everyone had a great year in 2016. O-levels completion for Heather, Sec 2 streaming for Olivia and PSLE completion for Abby. Time to award everyone for great efforts and achievements. Its time for a fly-drive vacation to Kyushu, Japan.

It took almost a year of planning since early 2015, with pre-bookings of accommodations, car-rentals, and researches on sightseeing places. The decision was to embark on a getaway on wheels, away from big cities, staying in BnBs, and exploring attractions at our own time. No way I would consider joining tour groups and visiting those usual popular destinations raved by colleagues and friends. I wanted to try something different, something customized and planned out my myself. I wanted to share my trip with anyone else out there who might be also interested to do a similar trip with limited budget, limited help and didn't want to join any guided tour groups. Feel free to reach out to me.

This was an ambitious plan and there were challenges as well:

• This was our first time to Kyushu

• Drive almost everyday from 11 - 28 December 2016

• Do a round island trip at Kyushu in a counter-clockwise route

• My family and I did not understand nor speak Japanese except less than 10 conversational phrases/ words.

• We had 5 of us and had to make do with not more than 3 large suitcases for the 18 days of travel, and we had to fit everything (including us) into a 7-seater MPV

• 2 hours was a norm to get the ladies up from bed to total readiness good-to-go, hence I needed to factor that into the planning

• Try to plan places of interests (historical, importance), budget pricing (this is a budget traveling group), and the attractions should be less crowded (and ideally no tourist from the two big North Asian countries closest to Japan)

• Minimal staying in hotels, more contact time with locals, eat what the locals eat. Stay in BNB as much as possible

• Winter season, hence limited daylight hours to cater to visiting of places of interests

• While researching online, there were fewer dependable written articles or travelogues with regards to driving the long distances all round Kyushu, while comparing that with other regions of Japan like Kansai, Tokyo or Hokkaido.

• Need to gather all map codes, addresses, contact numbers of the attractions, and plan the routes to visit most of them at the fastest routes and time. I also had to build in several "Contingency Plan B" places and routes, as winter might cause road closures/ landslides or routes damaged by the earthquake. Everything including the timings must fit nicely and my KPI was 95% hit rate (meaning we needed to visit at least 95% of the places mentioned in my planned list of attractions)

• Other than being a trip planner, route planner, trip financial controller, trip director, limousine driver, I also needed to be the time-keeper, security manager, GPS navigator, official photographer, trip narrator and bellboy. Not an easy job with multiple roles.

We left home for Singapore Changi Airport in the early morning and arrived at Terminal 3 with our baggage in tow. We will be taking a China Eastern Airlines flight to Fukuoka with a brief stop-over in Shanghai. Who are the ladies? My wife (Hwee Ling), my 3 lovely daughters (Heather, Olivia and Abby).

After the ticket and baggage check-in, it was time to have breakfast, immigration/custom clearance, and a short rest before getting on the plane.

Many passengers were taking the same flight as well. I reckon there were many whom would be doing their transfer at Shanghai as well. Another good transfer destination was to Jeju.

Finally got ourselves on the plane. Not too bad for the flight to Shanghai. Personal Entertainment kept us entertained throughout our 6-hour flight.

We arrived at Shanghai Pudong International Airport in the late afternoon.

It was chow time! We had a quick dinner while waiting for our next flight to Fukuoka.

We waited till the sun set and finally it was time to board the plane to Fukuoka.

More chow time on board, supper was served.

After 2 hours, we landed safely at Fukuoka International Airport. We took two taxis to downtown, the ride took roughly 20 mins and we arrived at our first night stop, an Airbnb apartment next to Canal City, Hakata (as indicated in the map below).

Decent accommodation. A studio apartment which has a small kitchenette. It was almost 11pm when arrived at this apartment, and we did a self check-in with detailed instructions from the owner. We quickly bought some snacks and cup noodles from the convenience store downstairs. And we were too tired to stay up too late as we would be checking out very early the next morning to commence our trip. Good night!